Читать книгу Playing With Fire - Carrie Alexander, Carrie Alexander - Страница 7

Three weeks before

THE MAN WAS a hunter.

Lara Gladstone felt it in the unwavering focus of his dark, hungry gaze. His was not a piercing stare. It was a steady, mesmerizing one, so visceral she shuddered beneath it as if he’d taken her nape in his strong hand and held her just so, close against his body. Trembling, but still.

Captured.

“Captured,” Lara mouthed to herself, pausing in her restless tour of the dining room. She touched her prickling nape, feeling his eyes upon her. I will not look.

Deliberately she tilted her head back and lifted her gaze to the yellow, red and golden-brown flecks of glass glowing overhead. A different kind of self-knowledge came over her. A sense of calm. In the midst of the noise and confusion of the cuttingly hip restaurant opening, she gazed at the kaleidoscope of colored glass and let herself slowly drift away. To a dream of home—a restless, yearning sort of dream, underlaid with her awareness of the man who’d been watching her for the past fifteen minutes.

She was in the woods near her house. The autumn leaves shimmered around her, glorious colors, yellow and red and golden brown. It was quiet, but she was not alone. There was a man. A dark, hungry man. He was stalking her. She must flee. Yet even as she ran until her heart was bursting in her chest, deep inside she knew…she knew…

She wanted to be captured.

THE WOMAN WAS a tease.

Daniel liked that about her.

Absently he raised a glass of red wine to his mouth, wetting his lips as he tracked her circuitous route through the crowded restaurant. When she stepped momentarily out of view, he craned his neck for another glimpse of her. Such impatience, however limited, was unlike him.

Ah. There she was, looking up at a large piece of stained-glass artwork suspended from the ceiling on chains. She swayed ever so slightly, her shoulders moving sensuously, her hand going to her nape and lingering there for an instant before slowly slipping around to stroke her long arched throat. An answering caress sensitized Daniel’s palms, as if already they knew the feel of her moving beneath them. The warm silken glide of her skin under his fingertips.

A pretty young man approached her. He was garbed in downtown artiste de rigueur—clingy shirt and trousers, both made of thin black wool, a pair of glasses with blue lenses and heavy black frames and, for that Bohemian touch, one indiscreet piercing. In this case, a small silver hoop through the septum. Useful, Daniel decided, if the boy needed to be convinced of his impending departure.

The young man put a hand on the woman’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.

Several heads turned when she laughed. Despite Daniel’s sudden inclination to make judicious use of the nose ring, the exuberant laugh prompted an answering smile to tug at one corner of his lips. He might have known. No lockjawed, nasal hunh-hunh-hunh for this woman. Her laugh was full-bodied, natural. It revealed her zest for life.

So, he thought with a measure of self-congratulatory swagger. She had brio. She would be his match.

The lazy interest that had stirred inside him at the sight of her expanded into pervasive desire. A feeling to relish. One he’d been missing for too long. Already the thrill of the hunt was thrumming in his veins—a low, slow, steady drumbeat keeping pace with the first hot flush of stimulation.

The woman stood out in the crowd like a tawny lioness, regal and reserved among a pack of craven hyenas begging for scraps of attention. She was all in gold, from a cloud of amber hair to the sharp tips of her narrow suede sling-backs. Her dress was an alchemist’s dream—a fluid piece of fabric that skimmed her lithe curves, softening the angular edges of a trim, athletic figure.

Her head seemed a tad too small, set on a long neck above broad swimmer’s shoulders, counterbalanced by the riotous mass of her pinned-up hair. A private thought made Daniel’s smirk slip sideways, lifting the other side of his mouth into a generous smile: She had the kind of wild, thick hair that was meant to be spread across a pillow.

He saw her prone on his own bed, stretched out upon cool Egyptian cotton sheets, long, tanned limbs spread in flagrant invitation, her eyes bold…provocative…teasing.

Yes. It would happen. No question.

After another laugh and an indulgent pat on the cheek, the woman turned away from the pretty young man. Toward Daniel.

He drew a quick breath through his teeth, his chest expanding. As much as he desired the body, it was the face that was truly captivating, that continually drew him in. Her face was small and round, unexpectedly full in the cheek when compared to the lean length of her. Cherubic, he might have said, except that her mouth was wide, her nose narrow and her eyes…

Ah, her eyes were feline—aloof but curious, distant yet riveting. Sparkling with life.

They looked full of naughty thoughts.

Mentally Daniel gathered himself in preparation. Attuned to his wavelength, she responded with a flick of her lashes. Her head cocked in his direction. For the fourth or fifth time, he intercepted a surreptitious glance. Not by default. She wanted him to know that she was as aware of him as he was of her.

Without a doubt, the woman was a tease.

Her elusive gaze slid away again. With the lift of a bare shoulder, she swiveled on her heel, presenting him with her backside.

The dress, so demure from the front, was cut in a deep slash that bared her back to the very dimple at the top of a tight little bottom. A second slit traveled upward from the hem, exposing the entire length of her right leg. Daniel took his time examining the effect. He’d never devoted himself quite so fully to the erotic qualities of the curve of a muscular calf, the hollow of a knee, the tender flesh at the back of a woman’s thigh.

When he took a step in her direction, she moved swiftly away, maneuvering past a knot of hors d’oeuvres munchers. Her long, sure stride split the slashed skirt beyond daring. His heart gave an unwieldy thump. The woman was one dropped stitch away from public indecency.

Intent on following her, he set his wineglass on the thick polished slab of marble that made up the bar. The interior of the new restaurant was a marvel of look-at-me architecture—all stuccoed curves juxtaposed against sharply angled half walls of brushed steel. Exposed steel I-beams were crusted with the perfect degree of rust, in contrast to the slick black terazzo floor. At least fifty guests occupied the toothpick chairs clustered around stainless-steel bistro tables. Others jammed the padded banquettes that encircled the space. The overflow stood in clusters, nibbling at the free food, attacking the champagne and assorted wines with gusto. Taken together, it was all too pretentious for Daniel’s taste. He preferred history and age to cutting edge design.

Tamar Brand, his companion for the evening, aimed a wordless question at him as he passed. He volleyed with a shake of his head. She raised just one of her elegant black brows—a neat trick she used sparingly—her amused smile both forgiving his curtness and informing him that she knew exactly what he was up to. As always.

Daniel didn’t pause. No words were needed; after eleven years together, Tamar knew him far too well. If left to her own devices, she would, with no reproach, take a cab home and charge it to his expense account. Along with a pricey bottle of wine and take-out dinner from one of the city’s ritzy delis.

Bribery, he thought, but Tamar’s silence and skill were worth it.

He turned the corner. Only quick reflexes prevented him from walking straight into his prey. The lioness stood directly on the other side of one of the angled silver walls scattered around the main room like sculptures. No chase, then, he thought, slightly disappointed. She was waiting. For him? Of course.

He saw it first in the rounded innocence of her eyes, then in the smile ready to burst from her lips as laughter. Yet there was also a certain tension in her squared shoulders and elongated swan’s neck. He presumed that although she was confident in herself, she was not entirely sure of him. Good.

He said the first thing that sprang to mind. “Where’s your piercing?”

Her lashes widened. “Are you certain I have one?”

The voice was lovely—a contralto as rich as her laugh. He gestured at the crowd with spread hands, then dropped his arms to his sides at once, far too aware that his palms still itched to stroke her long, bare arms. To sink into her untamed hair.

He said, “Everyone under the age of thirty does.”

“But I’m thirty. Exactly. On the very cusp of your anthropological hypothesis.”

“Then your piercing must be hidden.” He let his gaze drift across the golden dress before rising again to her quirkily beautiful face. She hadn’t used cosmetics to alter her complexion. Her childishly plump cheeks were unshadowed, the pale sun freckles dotting her nose unconcealed. Only her eyes were elaborately enhanced with a muted palette of copper, bronze and green.

The painted lids lowered. “And yours?”

“I’m too old,” he said evenly.

“How old?” Without pretense, she inspected his suit, an impeccably tailored designer deal for which he’d paid a shocking amount, enough to have funded his entire school wardrobe of jeans and tees and the single off-the-rack suit he’d worn to every college function right up to graduation.

The woman’s gaze had lingered long enough to make him wonder if she was studying the suit…or the body beneath it.

He stayed perfectly still, even though his blood thundered with primal urges. “Thirty-six.”

“Married?”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“The woman,” she said, ignoring his diversion tactic, “she’s not your wife?”

He was fairly certain that the lioness had arrived after he and Tamar. She couldn’t have seen them together—they’d separated almost at once. “What woman?” he asked carefully.

Her eyes, green as a tropical sea, met his. She smiled, patient and knowing.

He conceded the point. “She’s not my wife.”

“Longtime companion?”

“No.”

“You hesitated.” A mildly playful taunt.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” Her voice became serious; her eyes were less so. “I don’t play fun and games with married men.”

He tried not to betray his surprise. Or his conclusion, even though the odds-on possibility that she’d already made up her mind about him—about playing with him—had sent shock waves crashing through his system.

“I see.” He kept his voice gentle but suggestive, asking without actually asking if she meant what he hoped she did.

Her small nod granted the unspoken petition. She was a queenly cat. “Yes, I believe that you do.” Her head tilted. “Convenient for both of us.”

A pocket of silence enveloped them. Daniel, for once, was uncertain. Had they agreed to a sexual affair? A dalliance?

If so, it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Suddenly he wanted more.

“A guess,” he said. “Your tongue.”

Her brows were brown, several shades darker than her hair. They drew together. He saw as her mind clicked into his place in the conversation. “Wrong,” she said, teasing again. She stuck out her tongue so he could see that it was not punctured by a metal stud. Her tongue was pink and moist, as long and narrow as the rest of her. The gesture was oddly intimate. Perhaps because he instantly pictured her licking a path down the center of his chest.

The air between them shifted, thickened.

His heated gaze zeroed in on the tight peaks of her breasts, clearly outlined against thin gold fabric. Unpierced. “Then where…?”

She folded her arms, stroked the hollow in her throat. “Not so fast, sir.” Her voice was light.

His felt dense and needy. “I had the impression you liked it that way.”

“Mmm.” She regarded him frankly. “Yes, I do. And I’ve made up my mind about you.”

His smile was all confidence, his demeanor assured.

She turned and walked away.

“IS THAT YOUR TAIL I see,” Tamar said when he returned, “tucked between your legs?”

Daniel thrust his fists into his trouser pockets and scowled. “Hardly.”

Clearly Tamar was enjoying his failure, but she knew not to take the teasing too far. She set an empty champagne flute rimmed with berry-red lipstick on a passing waiter’s tray. “Shall we call it a night? Bairstow’s already gone, so we’ve done our duty.”

“You’re free to leave.”

She shook her head at Daniel’s scowl, making the blunt ends of her hair brush bony white shoulders bared by a skimpy black sleeveless top. A matching pair of loose silk pants were secured by a drawstring knotted half an inch below her pierced navel; wide etched metal cuffs encircled her toned biceps. Tamar Brand was the type of woman who was not pretty, but whose impeccable style and confidence made other females stare through narrowed eyes as they tried to discern her secret.

“Like a dog with a bone,” she commented dryly, taking an engraved compact out of her tiny evening purse. She flicked it open and frowned at her lips.

Daniel snatched away the compact and snapped it shut. He held it out of Tamar’s reach, though she wasn’t one to reach. His thumb rubbed the engraved initials. It was familiar; after a beat, he remembered giving it to her two birthdays ago. She’d gone to Tiffany’s to select it, then had it wrapped and delivered to his office. He’d meant to pick out something personal, but as usual she’d beaten him to the punch. She was too efficient that way.

Tamar waited in silence. She could be as inscrutable as the Dalai Lama when she chose.

He dropped the compact into her open purse. “Go now.”

She sucked in her already-hollow cheeks, making a face at him. “Thanks, boss.”

“Take the car.”

They’d arrived in a hired car, a perk from his employers, Bairstow & Boone, the Wall Street brokerage house. Frank Bairstow’s dilettante daughter Ophelia was one of the partners in the restaurant’s ownership, thanks to daddy’s money. As Daniel was fresh off a promotion to junior partner, his attendance at the grand opening fete had been mandatory. He’d persuaded Tamar to be his “date.”

“You don’t need the car?” Tamar abandoned the goldfish lips. “My, my, Daniel. So the woman really did shoot you down.” She pretended to examine him for wounds. “Are you bleeding? Was it fatal, this blow to the ego?”

“My ego is fine.” His teeth gritted. Never in his life had he given up so easily, and Tamar surely knew that. She was merely trying to get a rise out of him.

“Perhaps you’re losing your skill?”

He didn’t consider himself a ladies’ man. If he’d had success in the field, it was because women couldn’t seem to resist a man who could resist them. His sights had always been set on other goals.

“I’m skilled enough for both of us,” was what he told Tamar. “There’s a guy at the bar. A trader with a hair weave and a platinum Rolex. He’s been eyeing you all evening—”

“Say no more,” she interrupted, withering with disdain. “I’m gone.” With a saucy flick of a smile, she tucked her purse under her arm and wended her way toward the industrial steel doors at the front of the restaurant. Daniel watched, curious if she’d leave alone—several men had approached her—but she appeared on the street unescorted, signaling for the car.

Daniel moved closer to the wide front window, keeping a protective eye on Tamar until the sleek midnight-blue town car glided up to the curb. The woman was an enigma, even to him. Although in some ways she was his closest friend, he knew her a fraction as well as she knew him. She was adamant about keeping her personal life out of the office. Tamar Brand’s vision was clear but narrowly focused. From the start, she’d made it clear that she did not care for questions or complications.

Perhaps that was why they got along so well—Daniel had been accused of the very same thing.

But not tonight, he thought. Tonight, he’d been struck blind. Tonight, he wanted to plunge headlong into a messy, unplanned, completely indulgent affair.

He thought of the lioness who’d refused to be his prize for the evening. And he smiled, a renewed anticipation spiraling through his bloodstream. He would have her.

A hand touched his shoulder. “You were supposed to come after me,” she said huskily into his ear, the action causing her breasts to brush lightly across his back. As if he needed the invitation.

“In another minute, I planned to.”

She made a small sound in her throat. Sexy—it shot tiny splinters of sensation under his skin. “I was always too forward for my own good.”

He didn’t turn. “There’s something to be said for cutting to the chase rather than cutting out the chase.”

“Yes, I could tell you were that type.” She leaned a little closer, resting her chin on his shoulder. He felt her breasts solidly this time, round and firm, pressed just below his shoulder blades. “All right, I’ll let you chase me,” she purred, her lips so close to his ear that his lobe vibrated. “And perhaps I’ll even let you catch me.” Perhaps she’d let him? He managed a dry chuckle.

Her hands closed around his upper arms. Long fingers, a strong grip. “Should we make it a dare?”

He was incited to a profligate degree, in mind as well as body. The latter was potentially embarrassing in such a public venue. “By all means,” he said, turning fractionally away from the banquettes beneath the front windows. The large stained glass piece she’d been looking at earlier hung directly over their heads, its myriad colors illuminated by several carefully placed spotlights. Their warmth was getting to him. A sheen of perspiration had risen on his forehead.

“I wouldn’t want to be just another of your popsies.”

He still hadn’t looked at her, but the black window reflected a pale image of her face, tilted beside his. “Popsies?” he asked, watching the dark shadows formed by the hollows of her eyes. Frustrating—he couldn’t gauge her reactions except in her voice. But she was holding on to him, forestalling his pivot.

“Lollipops.” The husky contralto hummed in his ear. “Sweet little suckers that last an hour, tops.”

“What makes you think I have a sweet tooth?”

Her grip tightened in concert with her voice. “Men like you…” She didn’t finish.

He let that one go. For now. Even though she was dead wrong. “And what is it you want?”

“Is this a negotiation instead of a dare?” She smoothed her right hand along his shoulder, switched her head over and said silkily in his other ear, “Shall we set up a list of rules, then? Would that suit your nature?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed when she reached past his shoulder and tugged playfully at his tie. Her fingertip followed the motion, flicking the bump above his collar as if chiding him for his hesitation. If only she knew. He was getting hard—so hard he had to shove a hand into his pocket and make a little room so his arousal wasn’t readily apparent. He swallowed again.

She said, drawing away, “I suppose you always follow the rules.”

“Not always.” He couldn’t turn.

“No?” She became playful. “By day, a by-the-books businessman. By night—” in the window, her head cocked “—a lawless scalawag.”

His lips compressed, withholding a laugh. “Scalawag?”

“Scoundrel, then.”

He chuckled.

“Libertine?” she suggested, stepping to his side, her eyes searching for his. “Lady-killer?”

“You’re way off base.”

She pretended to pout. “How disappointing. I was counting on your lawless streak to show me a good time.”

He turned quickly and took her by the elbows. A fleeting look of alarm passed over her face before her expression settled into an unblinking, wide-eyed stare. “You have no idea,” he said, startled by his own ferocity. His desire for her was quickly becoming rapacious. “What do you know about me? Not even my name.”

“It’s Daniel.” She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, another small signal of uncertainty. “I heard your wife say it.”

“Tamar is my executive assistant.”

“Your assistant?” A spark lit the feline eyes. “Aha. A substitute wife. Of course. I get it now.” She placed her palms on his chest and pressed lightly as her upper body swayed toward his. “You’re one of those driven Wall Street types. No time for a family, but you’ve been with your secretary for ages. She knows your likes and dislikes better than you do. She manages both your professional and personal life with an efficiency that’s frightening. She fusses over you like a wife.”

“Tamar doesn’t fuss.” He moved his thumbs against the soft skin of her inner elbows. “Otherwise, your assessment is accurate enough to be unsettling. I wasn’t aware that I’d become such a cliché.”

She studied his face, her lips puckering ever so slightly. A half smile. “There’s more to you?”

He said “Yes” with some intensity.

Her eyes were wide, bright; they reached into his, asking a question he couldn’t decipher. Suddenly she turned away, disengaging their linked arms with a shudder so small he might have missed it if they weren’t so attuned.

“What do you think of the restaurant’s decor?” she asked in a social make-nice voice. Pressing her knuckles to the hollow of her throat, she tilted her head to study the panel of stained glass that hung above them like a misplaced church window.

Distracted by the loose tendrils that coiled against her neck, he barely glanced at the piece. He wanted to blow aside her hair and run his fingertips over the bumps of her vertebrae until he reached the hollow of her back. Her dress was so open, so provocative, he might reach inside and cup—

“Daniel?”

“Belongs in a church, not a restaurant,” he said without thought.

Her chin lowered. “Really.”

Damn. He’d said the wrong thing. Aside from a casual interest in photography, understanding Art-with-a-capital-A was a challenge he hadn’t yet set his sights on. Probably he was supposed to have used words like stunning agony or fascinating dichotomy.

But it was only a piece of stained glass.

He looked up at it. Yeah, sure, it was a nice piece of stained glass. The wood-framed panel was large, roughly five feet by three. It contained thousands of tiny pieces of glass—green, gold, orangy-brown and red predominately, with flecks of white, silvery blue and a stark, clear lapis lazuli. No rhyme or reason to the placement, that he could tell. Thinking modern art with a certain derision, he stepped back to better view the piece. The shards of colored glass coalesced into a whole.

“A forest,” he said, surprisingly moved by its beauty. “Sunlight shining through the leaves. Autumn leaves.”

It wasn’t Art Speak, but the lioness seemed pleased. “You like?”

She’d been testing him, he thought, not sure why. Although, he remembered belatedly, she had been at the center of a group of people who’d studied the piece like connoiseurs, all of them narrowing their eyes and nodding sagely. Except her. She’d looked highly skeptical.

“Yes, I do like it,” he said, his curiosity renewed.

She spoke directly in his ear once more, the sultry resonance of her voice overriding his newfound appreciation of art. “Let’s go.”

He stared into her face. “By all means.”

She threw back her head, her eyes slitted. “Perhaps not all means. Can we start with the usual one?”

Missionary? he wondered, then tried to banish the mental picture he’d conjured when it made heat surge lavishly toward his lower body.

“Walking,” she said, smiling just enough to further tease his senses.

He nodded and gestured for her to proceed. They’d negotiated the crowd and were nearly out the door when a tall man of indeterminate age broke away from a cluster of guests and hurried over to stop them. “A moment, my dear,” he called, and Daniel’s companion winced as if she’d touched a fingertip to a red-hot stove burner. By the time she turned, a pleasant expression had been plastered across her features. But he saw the grit of her teeth.

“You mustn’t leave so soon.” The other man was several inches taller than Daniel’s six feet, suited in double-breasted charcoal-black with a glossy onyx tie. His face was patrician and immobile, except for the eyes, which were avid. Freshly clipped platinum hair lay close to his skull.

“The Peytons have arrived,” he continued, with the faintest trace of exasperation. He reached for her elbow. “They are important.”

She brushed away his hand. “Another time.”

Daniel opened the door, drawing the other man’s assessment. And puzzled dismissal. He tried for her elbow again, eager to tow her back inside. “I know this sort of thing isn’t your cup of tea. However—” he drew out the word, laying it on thick as a dollop of too-sweet jam “—you did agree—”

The lioness kissed the man soundly on both cheeks, effectively shutting him up long enough for her and Daniel to slip out the door. “Hurry, hurry,” she said, taking his hand and moving swiftly along the sidewalk in a race-walk step that had to be doing interesting things to her slitted dress. Sure enough, from somewhere behind them a wolf whistle pierced the brisk night air.

“He’s not after us.” Daniel slowed, using their clasped hands to draw her in closer.

She glanced back. “I guess we’re safely away.”

“Who was he?”

“Kensington Webb.” She gave no other explanation.

“And you are?” Daniel asked.

She did not hesitate. “Camille.”

“Camille…?”

Her profile was unwavering; her eyes stared straight ahead, avoiding his. “Let’s keep it to first names for now.”

“Fine.” For now.

He was strangely enthralled by her reluctance. Nothing like a good chase, he thought as he slid his arm around her waist. Except, of course, the capture and the sweet surrender that would follow.